Bluetooth LE Primer + iBeacon

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is undoubtedly the prevailing communication protocol between Smartphones and IoT devices coming onto our wrists, into our homes, and into our cars. As designers and developers, understanding the basic advantages and limitations of BLE is critical for any IoT project.

UPDATE: Geppy Parziale from iNVASIVECODE has agreed to join us and take us through one of the most talked-about feature in iOS7 - iBeacon. Many trade presses (tuaw, wired, GigaOm, tested) have recently covered this new feature in iOS. It is considered a potential game-changer in IoT because it will open doors to many new interactions and new services between BLE devices within a proximity. If you're curious about what iBeacon can do and what it will mean for IoT in the coming months, this is the event to attend.

We are looking for 2 volunteers to help us manage the check-in process - the first 2 volunteers will get into the event free! Please contact us for details.

Colin's Bio

Colin Karpinger is an entrepreneur engineer, who loves building products.

In high school he created his first web startup, SaveYourPaper, which let students upload their essays online to avoid floppy disk crashes. During college he started Punch Through Design (Organizer's Note: Check out their impressive list of projects.), which today has grown to 6 (and soon 7 or 8) people. They have a ton of fun and build great products.

After moving to Silicon Valley he created Thumbies, an iPhone gaming controller that sticks onto an iPhone screen to provide tactile feedback. This was licensed to Griffin, and sold at BestBuy locations nationwide.

In 2011 he co-created Air Guitar Move, an awesome guitar-hero like hardware accessory for the iPhone, 'Air Guitar Move'. They ran a successful kickstarted campaign, and also raised a small seed investment round.

Geppy's Bio

Geppy Parziale (@geppyp) has more than 15 years of experience in electronic hardware design and software development. During the last 12 years, he has been involved in international R&D projects related to computer vision, pattern recognition, and biometrics authentication. In 2008, he co-founded iNVASIVECODE and started crafting software and hardware solutions based on the iOS platform. He has extensive knowledge and hands-on experience on iOS and its frameworks. Since 2008, he also teaches developers around the world to create native iOS applications by providing 5-days intensive classes. He has various scientific publications and patents in the field of biometrics and machine vision. He has developed applications and frameworks for Apple, and some of his work is currently included in the latest releases of iOS, OS X and Xcode.

Our Event Venue and Drinks Sponsor

DesignMap is a San Francisco based design studio, passionate about advancing the craft of user experience design. We work with our clients to deliver delightful, intuitive products that are also build-able and viable. Follow them on twitter @DesignMap.

A former member

hey Devarshi, thanks for the link. The audio is a bit garbled, but may be its because no one is speaking directly in the mic and there is background music and noise. Why not start a google hangout with screen share instead?

A former member

I hope this presentation describes the full bluetooth LE standard and not just turns into an ad for Apple's iBeacon. I am very worried that Apple is behaving like Microsoft used to do: take an open standard and wrap their own tech around it, making it proprietary. We used to scream when microsoft did this to web standards.
If iBeacon isn't open (I really don't know but it doesn't appear to be) it will likely SET BACK the adoption of BTLE, not help it. I very much hope this meetup will shed light on this issue.

Hey Scott - That's a great point. Colin and Geppy's talks will cover the technicals of BLE and how makers can incorporate it into building interesting user experiences - including, but not limited to iBeacon.

The hardware startup meetup has drifted to where it conflicts with the IoT meetup and it's now becoming a monthly choice I hate to make (IoT wins this month :-). I know it adds work, and it's not as if either group is starving for attendees, but it sure would be nice to be able to attend both.

Hi Jim, thanks for reaching out. Meetup's are organized around multiple schedules so once in a while conflicts will occur. We are listening and looking into how we can avoid future scheduling conflicts.

This meetup is dedicated to the design practices, technologies, insights and opportunities around the next frontier information access - the Internet of Things (IoT). We want to cross-pollinate ideas from engineers, designers, researchers, data scientists and entrepreneurs to create meaningful and tangible solutions that will make information access more human, ubiquitous and commercially viable.